At least 1,429 Nigerians were repatriated from Niger Republic in May 2026, the latest data from the Mixed Migration Centre show.
This is as the West African country continues to serve as a major transit corridor for citizens attempting the dangerous journey to Europe through Libya and Algeria.
The figures are contained in the Quarterly Mixed Migration Update for West Africa, Quarter 2 2026 and obtained by Saturday PUNCH as the latest data on stranded Nigerian migrants along the Sahel migration corridor.
The latest data come as Nigeria continues to grapple with a wider japa wave, driven largely by economic hardship that has also pushed hundreds of thousands of citizens toward the UK, the United States, Canada, and other destinations through both regular and irregular channels in recent years.
The data cited a Saturday PUNCH report from May in which the Nigeria Immigration Service confirmed the arrival of at least 1,100 Nigerians who travelled by road from Niger Republic on May 22, 2026.
Two days later, the National Emergency Management Agency received an additional 329 returnees from Agadez, Niger’s main desert transit hub, bringing the total to more than 1,400.
The Mixed Migration Centre, a Geneva-headquartered research body affiliated with the Danish Refugee Council, stated that the mass return “highlight the continued presence of stranded migrants in Niger, many of whom face prolonged stays in IOM (International Organization for Migration) centres or urban areas with limited resources.”
Agadez, roughly 950 kilometres north-east of Niger’s capital, Niamey, has for over a decade functioned as the main northbound staging post for West Africans attempting to cross the Sahara into Libya or Algeria, before onward sea crossings to Italy or Spain.
The report showed that Nigerians remained among the persistent nationalities still attempting the Central Mediterranean Route into Italy.
As of May 2026, 163 Nigerians had arrived in Italy via that route, behind only Mali (193) among West African nationalities, though the figure was down from 196 Nigerian arrivals recorded over the same period in 2025.
The document also showed that Nigerians were also being swept up in a parallel and largely unrecorded expulsion running from Algeria back into Niger.
Citing Alarm Phone Sahara, a Sahel-based migrant rights network, the report disclosed that at least 14,602 people were expelled from Algeria into Niger between January 18 and May 17, 2026 alone.
It said this was equivalent to 43 per cent of the reported 34,000 expulsions recorded through the whole of 2025.
While most of these convoys officially return Nigerien nationals, the report noted that “increasing numbers of Nigeriens have also been included in unofficial convoys, which have primarily affected non-Nigeriens,” with those affected reportedly including nationals of Mali, Guinea, Nigeria, Sudan, and Chad.
The report added that on several occasions, migrants expelled from Algeria into Niger Republic were subsequently pushed back across the border into Algeria by Nigerien police.
It said this cycle of expulsion and re-expulsion has left affected migrants, Nigerians among them, in prolonged limbo along the borders.
Regionally, the report said Spain recorded 12,138 irregular arrivals by sea and land as of June 30, 2026, a 33 per cent decline from the same period in 2025, driven mainly by a 67 per cent drop in Atlantic Route crossings to the Canary Islands.
But the report cautioned that falling number of arrivals “do not necessarily reflect fewer crossing attempts,” noting that recorded deaths and disappearances on that same route fell by just 16 per cent, which was a far smaller decline than the drop in arrivals.
The role of Niger Republic as West Africa’s principal transit corridor dates back more than a decade, but accelerated after the collapse of the Muammar Gaddafi regime in Libya in 2011 and opened new smuggling routes northward.
Agadez, a UNESCO World Heritage desert town, became the last major stopover before migrants crossed hundreds of kilometres of open desert into Libya or Algeria.
Under pressure from the European Union, Niger Republic in 2015 passed a law criminalising migrant smuggling, which reduced visible transit through Agadez for several years but pushed smugglers and migrants onto riskier, less-monitored desert routes.
Niger’s military government, which seized power in a 2023 coup, later repealed the anti-smuggling law, a move rights groups said reopened Agadez as one of Africa’s busiest migration routes and complicated cooperation with European partners on migration control.
Nigeria, under the ECOWAS Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, allows its citizens to travel to Niger Republic without a visa for up to 90 days.
The report said this freedom has long made the neighbouring country both a legitimate trade corridor and an easy first step for Nigerians attempting onward irregular migration to North Africa and Europe.
(Punch)
